Hi all! Today (Wednesday, April 19th, 2023) I’ll be going live on Instagram with incoming Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Megan Ranney at 2:30pm ET. We’ll be discussing the good and the bad related to public health in 2023. Whether it’s Covid, gun safety, or any other threat to your health, that of your family, or your community, we need clinicians, researchers, and policy experts to reach the public and provide reliable information. That’s not easy when things are changing and bad actors seek to capitalize on the fact that science can and does change rapidly.
1. Why are healthcare facilities and hospitals dropping mask requirements, when hospital acquired Covid infections are increasing and already have a high mortality rate of about 10.6%? This has been reported by JAMA, The Lancet and yesterday by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina.
2. 50% of symptomatic healthcare workers in Boston went to work sick according to a recent study - Covid is continuing to mutate and spread. The US now has XBB.1.16. How do I keep myself safe if I have to go to the hospital, if frontline health workers aren’t masked? If the goal is infection this is great, but what about the duty to first do no harm? How is there a downside to masks when we still have a deadly respiratory virus circulating and spreading?
3. I read an op-ed that doctors report masks interfere with verbal patient communication. I was an OR nurse and cannot recall having an instance where a patient, coworker or surgeon had difficulty understanding me or me them because I wore a mask. This seems like a really poor reason to give up masking in healthcare and equates to public health failure. Other options: speak up, repeat, slow down, write it, or maybe turn away from the computer screen are better options than giving up masks.
4. Why do we hear so little news about Covid? No one seems to speak up from the CDC, news media or state or federal governments, or local health public health entities about Long Covid? Deaths may be lower, but there are plenty of evidenced-based research studies finding that Covid affects the brain, heart, endothelial tissue, gut, other organs and may be a predisposition to diabetes and autoimmune disease. As someone fully vaccinated and boosted, I worry about long Covid far more than dying of Covid. This virus isn't benign, there are consequences, yet healthcare is moving to give up masking, a basic precaution in disease prevention. Before HIV, no one wore gloves in healthcare but we learned. Why are we going backwards with Covid?
5. Is there funding for the U.S. to continue wastewater disease surveillance? With the end of the PHE, how will cases be tracked - or are we giving up on that, too?
6. Please explain the difference between mRNA and Novavax? Will Novavax or something like it be the Fall booster? What's the process for choosing the Fall booster given that Covid mutates very quickly? Will we ever see a pancoronavirus vaccine or nasal mucosal vaccines?
1. Why are healthcare facilities and hospitals dropping mask requirements, when hospital acquired Covid infections are increasing and already have a high mortality rate of about 10.6%? This has been reported by JAMA, The Lancet and yesterday by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina.
2. 50% of symptomatic healthcare workers in Boston went to work sick according to a recent study - Covid is continuing to mutate and spread. The US now has XBB.1.16. How do I keep myself safe if I have to go to the hospital, if frontline health workers aren’t masked? If the goal is infection this is great, but what about the duty to first do no harm? How is there a downside to masks when we still have a deadly respiratory virus circulating and spreading?
3. I read an op-ed that doctors report masks interfere with verbal patient communication. I was an OR nurse and cannot recall having an instance where a patient, coworker or surgeon had difficulty understanding me or me them because I wore a mask. This seems like a really poor reason to give up masking in healthcare and equates to public health failure. Other options: speak up, repeat, slow down, write it, or maybe turn away from the computer screen are better options than giving up masks.
4. Why do we hear so little news about Covid? No one seems to speak up from the CDC, news media or state or federal governments, or local health public health entities about Long Covid? Deaths may be lower, but there are plenty of evidenced-based research studies finding that Covid affects the brain, heart, endothelial tissue, gut, other organs and may be a predisposition to diabetes and autoimmune disease. As someone fully vaccinated and boosted, I worry about long Covid far more than dying of Covid. This virus isn't benign, there are consequences, yet healthcare is moving to give up masking, a basic precaution in disease prevention. Before HIV, no one wore gloves in healthcare but we learned. Why are we going backwards with Covid?
5. Is there funding for the U.S. to continue wastewater disease surveillance? With the end of the PHE, how will cases be tracked - or are we giving up on that, too?
6. Please explain the difference between mRNA and Novavax? Will Novavax or something like it be the Fall booster? What's the process for choosing the Fall booster given that Covid mutates very quickly? Will we ever see a pancoronavirus vaccine or nasal mucosal vaccines?
The question i'd most like to see discussed is "Where we you wrong during the pandemic? What factors led you to make that error?"